Protecting Family?

[Lord Preston]

What do you use to protect your family from assassins?

In my current game Milan has been sending multiple assassins at my generals so i've stacked multiple 5+ star spies with my family members to protect them. I've even stacked an assassin with them, not sure if it does anything but worth a try. Anyway, just through pure number of attempts they end up being successful, a 1 star assassin killed my King that had retinues and traits gained from repelling previous attempts plus 4 quality spies + assassin protecting him.

What more can I do to protect my family early? I haven't had the right location/time/money to train assassins up to kill these hostile assassins so should I just do what Milan has been doing to me and use pure quantity even if the odds are only 15% and could potentially make my assassin 0 star?

Am I just doing something wrong with my spies? I send them to spy on something then return them to my family member to train them up, does this stop them protecting him because they've used there turn?

Any would be great, struggling with the low number of generals I have atm since haven't had and adoption offers (i usually reject but will take anything atm, having to use leaderless armies to defend multiple directions).

Ta.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Interesting, I've never had such an aggressive experience from the AI. Was this a game versus human players?

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1. Ye olde spy network

Add spies. Add more spies. Always have super kick-A spies surrounding your generals. Keep generals inside cities and have them defend against several spies and assassins sucessfully to build their Anti-Spy and Anti-Assassin attributes.

2. Traits, traits, traits

Having your own agents perform many successful or attempted spy and assassin missions increases your factionleader's stats. Getting Spymaster or Master of Assassins as traits or retinue greatly helps.

3. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Spies and Assassins and Inquisitors can't swim. Get on a boat and dock it in your harbor (when there are enemy fleets in sight) and otherwise put these boats out to sea. Watch out for storms, though. And don't let the enemy navy sink you!

4. The proven Askthepizzaguy Method:

Destroy the faction in question with your armies as soon as possible. They can't produce agents when their cities are burnt to the ground, riddled with cannon fire.

[Lord Preston]

Interesting, I've never had such an aggressive experience from the AI. Was this a game versus human players?

Nope, standard singleplayer game with patched M2TW and no mods. The Milan armies were also very unusual, there typical mass of crossbow and varius militia were a lot smaller than in other games. I think they were at war with the Venicitian's as Milans territory was only Venice, Milan, city above milan and Dijon. Does the AI get missions such as assassination? Its rare I get the assassination missions so wonder if its rare for the AI to get them to hence this dedication to attacking a family member doesn't occur often?

I think I just didn't realise how many attempts were being made. Even if the odds were only 5%, if they were trying with 2 assassins for say 10 turns as I progressed from Dijon towards through Bern to Milan then you could reasonably expect a success. They only have Venice left now though as there punishment, screwing up my family tree so my maxed dread commander is now king and I have no heirs for 5 turns and they're probably going to be chiv so annoyed at a dread king so will have to knock him off .


Ta for the tips. Problem with more spies is I already had maybe 20 and everyone was annoyed at me so paying off the Danes to keep my north safe while trying to fight 2 or 3 factions at a time didn't leave much money for agents. I don't even know if adding more agents would of reduced the chance by anything significant, I guess there's a point where reducing the chance anymore is just pointless and best defence is attack. Having hit north Italy I now have more money than I can spend ... I might let milan keep Venice, and launch as many assassins as it takes to wipe out there family as an experiment/taste of there own medicine.

[Anonymous II]

In my recent Scotland campaign I experienced the same. I had been at war with the french for quite some time, and they kept 3-4 assasins around every city I had with generals inside. Quite annoying, not only their assasination attempts, but also standing in the way for trade, etc.

Anyhow... a zero or one star (subterfuge) assassin is easy to finish off with an assasin. You might have some trouble killing off the first one, but when your assassin has made one or two kills, the rest is just piece of cake. I believe assassins are as easy to kill as diplomats and merchants? Sure much easier to kill than generals, priests and spies.

[The New Che Guevara]

Interesting, I've never had such an aggressive experience from the AI. Was this a game versus human players?

Do any of your campaigns actually last long enough for enemies to raise spies against?

[Askthepizzaguy]

The ones versus humans, yes. Any human is smart enough to realize the advantage of spies, especially when considering the agent warfare which will happen.

Ones versus AI... only FactionHeir's VanillaMod has impressed me enough to stop a full on blitz.

[The New Che Guevara]

Something is telling me I'm underestimating spies then...

[Yoyoma1910]

If you cannot assassinate them, why not crush them with your troops? If you're not aware, you can surround ANY AGENT you see, by surrounding the 8 movement spots directly around them with troops, and then sending one final unit directly upon them to crush their agent heads. you can practice this against spies, assassins, roving diplomats, religious types, and ugly princesses to get the feel for the technique It's a good tool against inquisitors as well, and it doesn't affect traits at all.

If you're really loaded up with spies you should be able to see their assassins. You may also want to pay attention during the enemy's turn, because you will be able to sometimes trail where their agents are going, and the computer makes a windish sound to communicate that the enemy has secret agents taking actions or moving.

If you don't see them straight off, send troops out to bump into them, close off bridges and and pathways through mountains, build watch towers beaucoup, and you can aslo build walls of scrap troops, since agents can't just walk though them.

I hope this might have helped you. If it's Milan and they haven't expanded too far, you should be able to at least relegate them to a particular pathway or two, which you could then patrol.

[aimlesswanderer]

Well, you could sabotage their brothels and such to slow down their production of assassins, or just besiege the damn places. I always build lots of them and wipe out any enemy agents in sight, then move onto buildings, which are expensive to repair. Not good for chivalry ratings though.

[Marauder]

If you cannot assassinate them, why not crush them with your troops? If you're not aware, you can surround ANY AGENT you see, by surrounding the 8 movement spots directly around them with troops, and then sending one final unit directly upon them to crush their agent heads. you can practice this against spies, assassins, roving diplomats, religious types, and ugly princesses to get the feel for the technique It's a good tool against inquisitors as well, and it doesn't affect traits at all.

Seems more like bug abuse than an actual tactic, even though it is certainly convenient. I've never encountered an AI-controlled assassin with more than 2 stars, while I have no problem generating 6+ star assassins in a few turns, so long as there are enemy captains/0-scroll diplomats around for fodder.